A blog about an actress, silent film, and the Jazz Age; and occasionally the Denishawn Dance Company, writer Frank Wedekind, his character Lulu, Weimar Germany, Hollywood, the state of Kansas, books, music, art, history and other things sometimes only tangentially related to the heart of the matter, written on a regular basis by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the LBS.

"I have a gift for enraging people, but if I ever bore you it will be with a knife." -- Lulu in Hollywood (1982)

"I have been taking stock of my 50 years since I left Wichita. How I have
existed fills me with horror for I failed in everything. Spelling,
arithmetic, writing, swimming, tennis, golf, dancing, singing, acting,
wife, mistress, whore, friend, even cooking. And I do not excuse myself
with the usual escape of not trying. I tried with all my heart." -- Letter from Louise Brooks to her brother, quoted in the biography by Barry Paris.

2 comments:

The last quote above always disturbed me. Many people say things like that & they do so in an attempt to gain pity, or for validation. Clearly Louise was not the type to do that. One can only conclude that she really believed what she said.

I suppose one response to that (last) quote is that Louise had such high standards and was so far ahead of her times that all those things she supposedly failed at hadn't yet realized their full import during her lifetime. It's hard to tell whether she really cared one way or another in spite of the fact that she in all probability, honestly "tried with all her heart" at whatever it was she was doing - seeing that she was so profoundly adept at it.

In a similar vein Marlene Dietrich late in life discounted most of what made her famous (her silents) as no more than irrelevant "kitch".

I always liked the LB quote "I never kept anything without wishing I had given it away, and never gave anything away without wishing I had kept it".

Launched in 1995, the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com) is an online archive and international fan club devoted to the silent film star best known for her role as Lulu in Pandora's Box. Our motto, "To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world." - Salman Rushdie

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This blog is authored by THOMAS GLADYSZ, founding Director of the Louise Brooks Society. It is a continuation of the old LBS blog at LiveJournal, which started in 2002. Please send comments, questions, or material to share to silentfilmbuffATgmailDOTcom